Direct messaging makes it easy to connect one-on-one in real time, creating a more personal, trusted experience that helps build stronger communities!
In this article:
How To Enable and Access Direct Messages
About This Feature
Direct messaging enables private, real-time communication between learners and educators, as well as peer-to-peer, without the need to post publicly. This unlocks a more personal, high-touch experience that boosts trust, retention, and overall community engagement.
With direct messaging, you can:
- Increase Engagement & Retention: Direct, one-on-one support fosters stronger relationships, encouraging learners to participate more and complete courses successfully.
- Enable Timely, Personalized Support: Provide feedback, encouragement, or clarity at exactly the right time—without making learners wait or post publicly.
- Support Private, Secure Interactions: Give learners a safe space to ask questions and connect individually.
- Seamless Experience: Built right into Thinkific Communities—no need to switch platforms or manage external tools.
Direct messaging is available at the school-wide level, so learners can view and manage all their conversations in one place — across every community they’re part of.
Important Considerations
- Once direct messaging is enabled, learners can start private conversations with anyone they share a community with. That includes peer-to-peer and educator-to-learner chats.
- In-app notifications for direct messages are sent every 5 minutes, and email notifications are sent every 6 hours.
- While direct messages are available on the Thinkific mobile app, this feature is not yet available on the branded mobile app - stay tuned!
How To Enable and Access Direct Messages
By default, direct messages are turned on for any new communities that you create. For any existing communities, they will need to be enabled.
To enable direct messaging for existing communities:
- Go to Products
- Select Communities
- Click the ellipses (3 dot icon) next to any community and click Edit
- Select Settings
- Select Direct messages
- Toggle on Enable direct messages
- Click Save settings
And that's it! You can now send direct messages within your communities.
Toggling on this setting will activate direct messages for all of your communities, not just the one that you are editing.
Accessing Your Direct Messages
From the Admin Dashboard:
- Go to Products
- Select Communities
- Click on any community
- Select DMs in the sidebar
As direct messages are available school-wide, you can access any of your chats from any community.
Sending Messages
Once direct messaging is enabled for the first time, click Start a conversation from the DMs page in any community to send a new message, then search for the student you would like to message.
You can start a new direct message with a community member using the following options:
- From the DMs page by clicking the + icon next to New message, then searching for a user
- From a student's profile by clicking the Message button
From the chat screen, simply type your message, add any emojis from the emoji menu if you'd like, then click the arrow button to send!
Message Actions
You can react to any sent message in a chat with emojis, and you can edit and delete any messages that you have sent to another community member.
Message Reactions
To react to a message in a chat:
- Hover over the message you would like to react to
- Click the react (happy face) button
- Select your reaction from the menu
If you would like to remove your reaction from a message, follow the above steps then deselect the reaction from the menu.
Editing Messages
To edit a message in a chat:
- Hover over the message you would like to edit
- Click Edit
- Edit the message
- Click Send
Once your message has been edited, it will show as "Edited" next to the timestamp at the top of the message.
Deleting Messages
To delete a message from a chat:
- Hover over the message you would like to delete
- Click Delete
Once your message is deleted, the message will no longer show in the chat, and will instead show "This message was deleted...".
You can only edit and delete messages that you have sent and cannot edit or delete messages that have sent to you by other users.
Blocking Users
If you would like to block a user for any reason, you can do so from within the chat with that user.
To block a user:
- Click the kebab (three dots) icon in the top-right corner of the chat window
- Click Block DMs
- Click Block
When you block a user, they will not be notified that they have been blocked. They may still appear to be able to send you messages from their side, however you will not receive those messages. Please note that a page refresh may be required for the blocked chat to be hidden from your view.
To unblock a user after their chat has been hidden, click the + icon next to Direct Messages and search for the user by first or last name to locate the hidden conversation, then follow the above steps and select Unblock.
Blocking a user will only prevent them from sending you direct messages. They will still be able to reply to your posts in shared spaces you both belong to.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can message whom in a community?
Anyone that is a part of a shared community can message each other - this includes educator to student as well as peer to peer.
Can I disable messaging or limit who can use it?
Yes, you can turn off direct messaging at any time once it's enabled - to do this, simply toggle off Enable direct messages in the settings of any community. In addition, you are able to block specific users if needed.